Teaching and Learning, Coming and Going

Category: Travel

The look of confusion people give me when I am walking around with my host family is hilarious. It is like watching a constant game of “Which item doesn’t belong”. It’s more than obvious that I look nothing like them, with my paler than pale skin, freckles, and blue eyes. There’s also the fact that I am a giant here. Taller than every female and 97% of the males in this country, I stick out like a sore thumb. And my accent is just icing on the cake.

But people seem to ask the question “is this your daughter?” to my host family more than you could ever imagine. At first, we would explain. We would go into the story about me being a volunteer and how I am living with them for a few months while I teach at one of the schools in town. But that story is pretty long, especially in another language, and got boring after a while. Now we just go with it.

“Um… yeah, actually, she is my daughter? Why?”

It wonderful to watch their faces contort trying to think long and hard about how that could ever happen. How they could possibly have made something that turned out looking like me.

After a few weeks we even started to make it a bit of a game. Constantly coming up with mew stories about our lives. My host mom, Alba, now introduces me as her daughter just see how people react. Two young men at our gym are completely convinced that I am her biological daughter.

My host dad, Darwin, likes to tell people that I am his “daughter from another woman”. A few weeks back, he even want as far as to tell the man who is trying to buy his house that. Personally, I think that’s a pretty brave move on his end. Even though these were a few awkward moments that followed where the man tried to come up with something to say, he still bought the house.

But my favorite is when we ignore the fact that I am not Ecuadorian all together. When people ask if we are serious after Alba calls me her daughter and we respond with something along the lines of “yeah, why wouldn’t she be?” or “I really just don’t understand what you’re trying to get at here”. It is funny watching these strangers struggle to put into words why I couldn’t possibly be her daughter. They obviously don’t want to say anything rude, but they are striving for answers to the mystery.

Every one of these conversations makes our days just a little bit brighter and we walk away laughing. As time here s coming closer to the end, Alba tells me she doesn’t know what she is going to do without her new “daughter”, but I tell her not to worry because she will be getting two new ones from Germany in September.

I spend the majority of my time in Ecuador hanging out with my students, my host family, or the ladies from dance class. So when I went to Cotopaxi a few weeks ago it was unusual being with people between the ages of 18-27. Other than my host sister who comes home for the weekend, they were some of the first people my age I’d spent time with since I’d arrived in Ecuador in January. So obviously we made plans for the weekend after as well.

We are all living in different parts of the countries doing different kinds of work. Some are on a wildlife reserve an hour south of the capital working on a project about trees. Some are living in Quito doing murals for the government. And then there is me, a teacher in Otavalo. We decided that because two of them had birthdays back to back that we would have a bit of a celebration in Quito for them. And to top it all off, the majority of this group is headed back to their home countries in a week, so we had to have a going away gathering too.

We made reservations at a hostel (The Blue House) near Plaza Foch for Friday night. All of my friends arrived in Quito before I did and found out the hostel gave away my bed! So I decided to just go to the hostel right next door for the night and call it good. The lady who ran the hostel was around 70 and referred to me as “mi preciosa” the entire time I was there. She didn’t mind unlocking the front gate for me at 2:30 am when I got back from our celebration and I had a room for 4 all to myself. I think the Blue House giving away my bed was a blessing in disguise because the people there were not the friendliest. That goes to show, some of the hostels that look great from the outside might not actually be the best in town. Look for the older people, that’s where it’s at.

I woke up on Saturday morning to find the sweet old lady telling me that I should come eat some eggs because they are good for my health. I happily agreed and joined her and her husband for some breakfast. She gave me some medicine for the cold I was getting and before I left she handed me a wooden bead bracelet and said “so you don’t ever forget me”. She won my heart and hopefully I will be returning to visit her again before I head back to Michigan.

As for the group, they didn’t seem to be doing as hot as I was the next morning. Probably because they did get a breakfast made with a grandma’s love like I had. We went on a hunt for coffee near Plaza Foch, but it proved to be difficult. Plaza Foch sells more beer than it does coffee. We spent the rest of the day doing a bit of shopping and a lot of eating before we all returned that night.

It’s interesting what having a language in common can do while you’re abroad. Even though I only meet most of these people the weekend before, our common language tied us together pretty quickly. None of us are native Spanish speakers and are dealing with the same types of struggles here. We can all relate to having communication difficulties and it helps to know you’re not alone. And, hey, now I have friends from all over the world to visit when I travel.

I also want to say sorry because I completely forgot to take any pictures from this weekend. This is all I have….

The school I work at here in Ecuador has a very high percentage of indigenous students. The majority of my male students wear the long braided hair and classic white linen pants with their uniform every day, while the girls have their long skirts and frilly white sleeves under their school sweater vests.

Luis Ulpiano de la Torre, the school, has been working very hard this year to try to include aspects of the indigenous culture into some of the school pride. Meaning that the native language is being taught, we celebrate national native language day, and we try to have festivals for some of the important indigenous holidays as well. One of which being Pawkar Raymi, a celebration on the first day of spring.

Our school is lucky enough to be the place of a pretty sacred indigenous sit in Otavalo. If you take a path behind the school for 3-4 minutes, you will find yourself at a small waterfall next to a river that is used by the native Ecuadorians for ceremonial purposes. This year, on the first day of spring, our 5th grade class participated in a traditional Pawkar Raymi ceremony. The young girls and one boy preformed a dance for Pawkar Raymi and the students, teachers, and families participated in the tradition of sharing of food.

A large white sheet was laid across the ground and every person at the ceremony came forward to throw a bowl of food down onto the sheet. Mainly potatoes, corn, beans, and a bit of chicken. Food was placed until no more could fit. It was all mixed together and re-passed out. Anything that could hold food was being eaten off of. Plastic bags, old tupperware, and mugs. There was more than enough food to go around.

To my knowledge, this was the second Raymi celebration our school has hosted this year and I think it has become one of our new traditions. The students had a ball and it was refreshing to see them dedicated to somethings within the school. They truly felt represented this week and that can do wonders for a student’s sense of pride in their culture, the school, and their education.

To say my experience visiting Cotopaxi was an adventure is an understatement to say the least. I asked my school director if I could leave a few hours early to catch a bus at 11:00 so I wouldn’t be traveling at night. From Otavalo I knew it was going to take quite a while to get there, especially travelling on a bus. I left my house at 10:45 to get to the bus, at 12:00 I finally got on the Cita Bus that should have taken me right there. My host dad even went with me to the bus stop and talked with the driver about exactly where to drop me off. A few hours later (and still an hour later than I imagined because the bus was late) I was dropped where I thought I would be able to get a taxi right to my hostel. It didn’t take long after I stepped off the bus to realize that my bus driver had completely forgot about me and drove about 45 minutes past my stop. He didn’t even bother to tell me either. I was in the middle of nowhere with no possibility of getting a taxi to my hostel, because it was still another hour or so in the other direction. So I decided to hop on the next bus going to the direction I had just come from until I reached the nearest city, Machachi. On the bus I called the number for a taxi driver who told me to “find the horse statue” and said he would meet me there. 30 minutes later I had found the horse statue and Raul, the taxi driver, had found me.

Raul was just a regular, middle aged, Ecuadorian man who works directly with the hostel I was heading to, but man was he funny. Because the ride was a pretty long one (around 50 minutes) Raul asked if he could bring his lady friend, Olga, along with us. So the three of us were finally on our way. It was an oddly clear day, which is pretty rare for Cotopaxi. Raul would continuously stop the car and say “OH you have to get a picture of that! Go on, I’ll just wait here for you”.

At one point Raul pointed to a pretty small mountain to the east of us and said, “Yup, there’s Cotopaxi” and started to give me a brief history to the volcano. I was surprised because it was so small. Did I travel all this way for that? But I believed him because he said he had lived in Machachi his entire life. He knows more than I do, right? Then I head quiet Olga pipe in from the back seat. She was laughing and said, “Are you kidding? Cotopaxi is behind us. Raul, I think that’s just a hill over there”. When we both turned around to see the giant snow cover volcano behind us Raul was just as shocked as I was. He had lived there his entire life and it was as if he had never noticed it before.

It was around 5:30 when I finally arrived at The Secret Garden and I really needed a bathroom and a bottle of wine (in that order). I meet all my new roommates for the weekend and we headed to the hot tub for the night, which was only interrupted by dinner at 7:30 and the search for more wine a few times. We all went to bed around midnight with the terrible thought that we would all have to wake up at 7:00 am the next morning (mostly likely feeling all the wine from the night before) to do a 6.5 hour hike of Pasochoa.

Luckily, we were happily awaken at 6:15 the next day feeling refreshed and ready to go! I was more than shocked. We even had time to sit in a hammock, drink a cup of coffee, and write for an hour before breakfast was served. If that isn’t success, I don’t know what is.

We left for the hike, with a group of about 20, around 8:30. We were all given a pair of mud boot to wear instead of our hiking boots and were told that “it can get a little wet”. Personally, I thought that the boots would be a bit of an overkill, but boy was I proven wrong. This was, without a doubt, the hardest hike I have ever been on. We reached around 4,200 meters and we walked through rivers to get there. We arrived at the top of the summit in about 3.5 hours and the weather was absolutely beautiful. It was warm and pretty sunny, which is unusual for this region. I started hiking in 3 layers that morning, one of which being a thermal set and it only took about 30 minutes until I was down to just my t-shirt.

We stopped at the top for lunch and someone had to mention how lucky we were that it hadn’t rained. Not even 3 minutes later it was down pouring and like 35 degrees. So happy I brought a pair of gloves with me. We were all thinking well, at least the hard part is over, we reached the top. But have you ever tried to hike down a mountain in about 6 inches of mud for about three hours? It was not easy.

And we are a few hours in, and a good chunk of my water bottle is gone. I really had to go to the bathroom. I’d like to say, it is MUCH easier to pee in dry bushes than wet ones. Is that rain or pee going down my boot? I don’t know. I don’t even care. I just want to get home. Whoever wore those boots after me should probably watch out.

We slipped and slide all the way down. I’ve never seen so many men do the splits. It was like Olympic gymnastics on the side of Pasochoa that day. At one point I managed to slide a good 10 feet down on my belly before I could pop back up and yell “we’re good”. My blue clothes returned brown and soggy.

Compared to that, the rest of the weekend seemed pretty dull. Other than the compost toilet. There is nothing dull about a compost toilet.

There was more wine, food, hot tubs, and hammocks. I meet a bunch of people from other countries and we headed out on Sunday afternoon. I made it back to Otavalo around 7:30 that night completely exhausted and a little sore from the day before. I’m not sure if it was from climbing for six hours or an injury from falling down the side of a mountain, but it only lasted for a few day so I’m not too worried to find out which.

When I first arrived in Ecuador I was blown away by all of the food. There was new food on my plate every day. And a lot of it. I was utterly amazed at how much my host family and friends were able to eat in one sitting. And they did it quickly. I would be half way done and completely stuffed and they would be sitting with completely empty plates ready for the next round. I would sit down for lunch and see a large bowl of food and think Oh I can do that, today and right when I had taken my last bite they would set down another plate filled with chicken, rice, salad, and corn on the cob. Let’s not forget the natural fruit juice and coffee as well.

I learned my first day here, (it didn’t take long at all) that not finishing all of the food on your plate is offensive. I have been trying my hardest to be a part of the clean plate club every day since, which has naturally left me with the “post-Thanksgiving dinner” feeling every day for about a week. Eventually my body got used to the excessive about of food I was shoveling into it and now it just seems normal. Honestly, I should enter an eating contest when I get home to show off this new skill.

Overall, the food here has been more than wonderful. I’ve been eating a lot of chicken and there is white rice with almost every meal, but there have also been plates of shrimp that have almost made me cry because they were so delicious. I’ve fallen in love with yucca. Especially the kind that grows in Intag. And the bread here cannot even compete with the bread from the States.

So here is a little run down of what a usual day look like for me.

7:30 am- Breakfast

Break with cheese, jam, or Nutella.

Fruit- apples, pears, papayas.

An egg in some type of form.

Homemade juice. The flavor changes daily.

Tea or coffee.

9:30 am- School Breakfast

The government gives each teacher and student a breakfast every day at 9:30. All classes stop for 15 minutes in order to do so. Each day we are given some type of “cookie” and a vanilla flavored milk that doesn’t need to be refrigerated.

* By “cookie” I mean the worst salt cookie you could imagine or a bubble gum flavored granola bar. But they call them cookie. Personally, I think it is putting shame on the cookie name, but who am I to judge someone’s culture??

* I tried the milk once. Never again.

2:00 pm- Lunch

Lunch changes a lot depending on the day. During the week is it usually some type of meat. Chicken or pork is the most common, but we do seem to have fish at least once a week. There is always white rice. Usually, there is something made from corn. And there is a “salad” of some sort. My host mom calls mix of veggies a salad, which I am more than okay with. There is also more homemade juice and tea or coffee.

On the weekends, lunch is a little more developed. Usually starting with a soup and ending with a slice of torta. My host mom likes to go all out on the weekends.

Since I have been here in Otavalo, my host mom is determined to teach me how to cook. Personally, I think her expectations of my cooking abilities were a little high when I arrived and she thinks she needs to make up for some lost time. And by lost time I mean the last 22 years of my life when I was supposed to be learning how to be a good wife. She was highly disappointed in the fact that it takes me a significant amount of time to peel a peach and that I was never taught how to quickly pick each individual corn kernel off of an ear of corn.

Now many of my weekends are filled with my host mom running around the kitchen while I sit at the counter and practice my peeling skills. Normally I wouldn’t like to detected an hour a week to peeling fruit, but the look on her face when I finish a whole bowl and ask for further directs is worth the effort. It is obvious to tell she is a natural born teacher.

This past weekend she decided to teach me how to make Torta de Naranja. In other words, Orange Cake. She was determined not to touch a single item in the kitchen during the process so I could say “I made it completely by myself” or in her words “Hecho de Emily”.

I am lucky enough to have a friend, Charlie, who is living just south of Quito doing biological research in the rainforest for two months while I am here and he loves to hike. He and one of his friends, Steph, from the La Hesperia Biological Reserve traveled up to Otavalo for the weekend to do a little hiking a few weekends ago.

We started out at the Handicraft markets on Saturday morning around 9 am in search for a handmade alpaca sweater for Steph, some coffee, and a bit of food for the hike. By 11:00 we were in a taxi with everything we needed. We bought six pieces of bread from a little store in town for $1.80, six bananas from the market for $0.50, and three large bottles of water for less than $3 at the supermarket and were ready to go.

The three of us hopped in a taxi in the center of Otavalo and drove for about 30 until we reached Mojanda, the inactive volcano we would be hiking. The taxi cost about $15 and the driver gave us his phone number so we could call him if we needed a ride when we were done with the hike. We had heard that if you ask the taxi drivers to come back at a specific time they would be more than willing to help you out. Our taxi driver pretty much shut down that idea real quick. Luckily he did because our four hour estimate turned into six and he would have been waiting awhile.

The drop off point for the buses and taxis at Mojanda was more touristy than I had anticipated. There were more than ten cars and taxis chilling on this dirt road just waiting for the families to take their classic mountain picture before driving off. I talked with two different families who were there waiting for the clouds to move so they could get a picture of the main lake. I asked both of them if they knew which trail was Fuya Fuya and which trail they hiked. Both of them said they weren’t actually there for hiking. Just for a quick picture before they went somewhere else for the day. I guess less people hike the Andes Mountains than I imagined.

The most important thing I learned on this trip is that people lie. I read online and was told by people who had hiked Fuya Fuya in the past that it was very well marked and it was super easy to find and navigate. Well, guess what, it was a big ‘ole lie. Yes, there was a map of all the trails when we got there, but it was a terrible map and it gave no reference to you where while looking at it. We saw Fuya Fuya on the map but had no concept of what direction is was. At this point we were just eager to get going, and one of Charie’s friends from the reserve told us if we just keep right the entire time we were on the correct trail, so that’s what we did.

We headed out and started hiking. I realized that hiking is a bitch and altitude can really mess with your body. The first mile or so went fairly well. My pack was heavy with all my water, bread, and bananas but the trail was fairly flat and time was passing pretty quickly. We had seen two beautiful lakes and some of the most outrageous views of life. Mountains surrounded us and we were headed up a swirly path to the top of the tallest one in sight.

Then I hit a wall. And being a fairly competitive person I was angry that I was already tired and even angrier that the top of the mountain seemed to still be so far away. I wanted to be “winning”, but it seemed like my new friends were kicking the mountains butt and I definitely didn’t feel like I was kicking anything’s butt. I was hungry and hot even though it was only around 40 degree because of the high elevation. There seemed to be no end goal for us. Looking back on it now, I realize we were defiantly not on the Fuya Fuya trail and had already hiked more than a few miles on a low to medium incline. I had a reason to be exhausted, but I didn’t realize it at the time.

We started stopping more and more often for breaks to eat, relax, and take in the view. At some points we would hike an hour and feel completely fine without take breaks while at the other times I would walk about 300 feet and be like “guys, are your thighs burning like mine???”. I soon realized that my friends were just better at hiding their exhaustion than I was and none of us felt like we were kicking and butt. Again, looking back at it. We were destroying that mountain and had no clue in the world.

I’m not sure why this surprised me so much, but the first time I noticed an entire city was beneath me while I was standing on the side of Mojanda was breath taking. At 13,000 feet elevation even huge cities look so small. It was beautiful and each time I saw the cities from a different perspective I was shocked all over again. I realized that every day I look out over these mountain and every day I think Wow that is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. It has been weeks now and the beauty still hasn’t worn off. I hope it never does. A constant respect and love for your surrounding is great for your mental health and it is something Lansing hasn’t been able to give me.

Half my water bottle, three pieces of bread, three bananas, and three and a half hours later we had reached the top of Mojanda. We had finally accomplish it and even though we were exhausted from walking around nine or ten miles, at that point we were filled with excitement. We were so high that everywhere we looked were clouds. Personally, I wanted to take a picture from the tippy top of the mountain, but it was impossible. It was all fog. But don’t you worry, I took pictures of the clouds anyways.

We began descending the mountain thinking that it wouldn’t take very long. We could see the drop off point and we just needed to walk down and around one of the three lakes at Mojanda. We were proven wrong once again. The trail was extremely curvy and after a little more than an hour our attitudes had gone a bit sour. I was thinking that, seeing as we were at the top, the rest of the hike would be downhill. That was not the case. There were still long distances of incline and the phrase “Why more up?” was playing on repeat in my mind. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t unhappy and I would gladly do the hike again, but the mindset I had going into the hike just wasn’t enough. I hadn’t prepared myself for this.

When we saw a couple around our age driving a truck down the trail, we were more than willing at this point to flag them down and ask if we could ride in the bed of the truck until the drop off point, which look another mile or two ahead. My two friends didn’t know any Spanish, so it was up to me to ask the young couple, but my years of Spanish education never taught me the vocabulary for hitch hiking. I was flustered and my body needed them to say we could have a ride, so I’m pretty sure my exact translation of what I asked was “we sit there?” with a gesture towards the bed. They laughed and happily agreed. I felt so much joy sitting in the bed of their truck bumping my way along the trail of the mountain. We finished our bread and bananas and officially finished our hike as well. I cannot thank the lovebirds who saved my legs from walking another mile or two enough, and yes we did see you kissing from the back of the truck. Windows go both ways.

The three of us had a wonderful time even though our four hour hike turned into a six hour hike. In the end, we walked just over 15 miles and I couldn’t move my legs for almost three days. It was completely worth it and maybe I’ll try to find the actual Fuya Fuya trail at some point before I leave.

(WARNING: I wrote this post after being in Ecuador for one week and am posting it late)

Welcome to Ecuador where everything is “Que bonita” and it is more than acceptable to add “ito” to the end of every word in a sentence. I’ve officially been in Ecuador for a week and I am starting to get used to many of the cultural differences I’ve been experiencing here.

A few of the things I’ve noticed about Ecuador:

Shaking someone’s hand is not a thing here. No matter who it is, you go in for the hug and kiss on the cheek. Complete strangers on the street, the boss, or all twenty of the ladies in your salsa class. It doesn’t matter. Assume you need to hug them before any conversation can begin. And this is not one of those one and done type of situations, it is every time you see them. Every morning when I arrive school I get a hug and kiss on the cheek from each and every teacher. That is about twenty hugs before 7 a.m.

There are stray dogs everywhere. I was warned about this one and it still hit me hard. It seems like there would be enough dogs for every single person in this country to take in as a pet. They are always around. Even at my school. We have three stray dogs that live inside of my school. I’m still not sure how they got there and who feeds them, but I do know that it is very distracting when an 80 pound dog walks into my classroom when I am trying to teach the difference between comparative and superlative phrases.
I’m also shocked that it is completely normal for these stray dogs like to lay in the street. Cars do not slow down for them to move. The animals are expects to get up and out of the way before they are hit. This really freaked me out my first day in Quito. I swear, the buses get within inches of them before flying by.

Talking about buses and driving. Holy cow, is driving different here. While in the U.S. the speed limit can seem more like a suggestion rather than a regulation, here any type of driving rule has the same authority as a mall cop. Just a buddy in a uniform to remind them that if something bad were to actually happen there could possibly be some consequences.
Personally, I am a firm believer in lanes on the street. Fast lanes, slow lanes. Really any lanes. Here in Ecuador lanes are just determine how many cars can fit on one street at the same time. It’s a simple equation. Count how many lanes are painted on the ground and add three. There you have it, that is how many cars will fit!

Street food. This is another one of those things that I was told about before I arrived. I told myself that street food probably wasn’t the best option and I’d rather be safe than sorry, but the moment I got here I found out that in some places you can roll down your window and people will bring you an entire bowl of dessert type food for a dollar!!!! For me, it is really hard to say no to that. So now, seven days into my trip I’ve decided that street food isn’t so bad and that I doubt I will get the opportunity to eat a piece of a pig from a indigenous street vender any time after I leave. I’m just going for it.

Most of these things are pretty simple and haven’t been hard to adjust to. I have no problem with hugging strangers, seeing a puppy when I walk to school every day is pretty cool, and who doesn’t love buying delicious and inexpensive food! I could probably deal without getting a little nauseous every time I’m in a car here, but I’ve got to take what I can get, right?

I was warmed about different signs of culture shock before arriving and I am lucky to say I haven’t experienced anything too drastic since I’ve been here. My host family is wonderful and is constantly trying to make me feel welcomed. I’ve been introduced as “mi hija” to multiple people and I really do feel like another daughter to the family I’m living with. It has been wonderful and I am excited for the next 12 weeks.

I always imagined that when I decided to spend time in Ecuador I would be living in the capital city, Quito. I have spent years doing research here and there to learn about what Quito is like. What is the city like, what are the people like, what is the culture? But this past week I received an email saying that there is a school in Otavalo (about 2 hours north of Quito) that really needs an English teacher. Even though I usually am a “Let’s stick to the plan” kind of girl, I thought it was more important to give students a teacher than to worry about where I will be spending the next few months.

So the plans changed.

Now, I will be staying in Otavalo, Ecuador. Otavalo is a small city tucked away in the Andes Mountains which inhabits around 90,000 people, many of which are indigenous people. Otavalo is famous for its outdoor market, el mercado, which forms every Saturday in town. I have heard that you can find pretty much anything at these markets. From cloth to live stock, to jewelry, to Guinea Pig on a stick. It would be an understatement to say that I am excited to see this market. Even when I thought I was going to be staying in Quito, seeing the market was at the top of my list.

Recently, I have given information about the school I will be working with. There are around 400 students and teaches 1st through 10th grade. I was told there is a bit of flexibility with the age of students that I will be working with. I am extremely excited to have the opportunity to experience more than one age group because, let’s be honest, I don’t actually know what grade I want to teach in the future. The first few weeks I am there, I will be working alongside a teacher to learn a little about the students, the school, the teachers, and the culture. After a week or so I will have the opportunity to take over a few classes of my own. In preparation for that, I have started creating a few lesson plans and activities for the students, but I will not be making anything extensive until I learn a little more about my students. Once I am living in Ecuador and finishing up my lesson plans I will be posting them under the “Teaching” section of the blog, if you are interested in looking at those.

My host mother will be one of the teachers from the school I will be working with. Not only is this a wonderful resource to have as a future educator, but it will also be great to have someone to walk/ride to school with and someone to help me assimilate to the Ecuadorian culture. The fact that I know my host mom and I already have things in common is very reassuring. I am excited to meet her and her family and to see what the beautiful city of Otavalo has in store for me.

Only 25 days now until the Adventure of a lifetime begins.

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About Me

¡Hola y bienvenido! I am Emily. A student at Michigan State University. Future teacher. Spanish enthusiast. And I am about to set off on a three month South American Adventure. Wish me luck!